How to Handle JWT Key Rotation Without Causing Authentication Outages
When services like Google or GitHub rotate their JWT signing keys, apps relying on cached key sets can face login failures if verification logic isn't built to recover gracefully. The core fix is to trigger a one-time, rate-limited refresh of the issuer's JSON Web Key Set (JWKS) whenever an unknown key ID is encountered, rather than waiting for a periodic cache timer. Relying solely on timed refreshes creates a failure window that can last as long as the cache interval — nearly 15 minutes in some configurations. Engineers are advised to distinguish three separate log cases: a known key with a bad signature, an unknown key resolved after refresh, and an unknown key that remains missing after refresh. Concurrent cache misses should be coalesced into a single refresh request to prevent attacker-controlled inputs from triggering repeated outbound calls to the issuer.
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